Colin F. Jones

ARGUMENTS

~ 1 ~

Those who would think I would demean their name,
Are those who would perhaps do much the same,
And as a friend would have much more to learn,
Of my loyal heart and of my minds concern.
For I in truth do not deceive one thus,
Though he not knowing me might this point discuss,
For I don’t think in terms of causing harm,
Nor establishing in my friends such false alarm.
I do presume most humbly that a friend,
By being such my defects comprehends,
And I take it that a friend would understand,
Where might a perfect stranger lose command,
Of temperament to guard his scaled walls,
Lest from his parapet o’er his cannon falls.

~ 2 ~

At the same long table all of us do eat,
Though each from a different plate doth taste his meat,
And some have thoughts fixed in biased minds,
While others offer thoughts of different kinds.
In all our talk emotion breaks no law,
Yet breaches logics proper way to score,
And narrow minds do focus where they set,
To cause in them some misery and regret.
So we devise the law and all its rules,
Because all of us are vain self righteous fools;
Appoint our leaders, who our words do voice,
While others are unhappy with the choice,
But those who sit and scheme to the midnight hour
Will raise the money and will claim the power.

~ 3 ~

And we who sit here now with some delight,
And those who think the choice was not right,
Will argue still because we have much to say,
Because some of us are not with us today.
It is our sons who now go off to war,
To see the horrors that our fathers saw,
To do the deeds as we who went before,
Becoming veterans to argue yet some more.
There will be those who protest all the way,
Bless them all for all they have to say,
For so long as folk are heard to disagree,
We know our sons are fighting for the free,
Who may in their ill prejudice still deny
That soldiers, for a purpose, fight and die.